


What Happens in Vegas

by Farasha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Domestic, Falling In Love, Las Vegas Wedding, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farasha/pseuds/Farasha
Summary: Wanted: participants for the study 'Single People Get Married For a Week' by Buzzfeed.Yuuri is a burlesque dancer at the Flamingo Las Vegas. Victor is a blackjack dealer on the casino floor. When Yuuri agrees to sign up for the Buzzfeed challenge, he doesn't expect to get married to "Blackjack Guy," who Yuuri vaguely remembers flirting drunkenly with on one of his first nights working on the strip. Victor seems smitten with him, and Yuuri isn't sure what to do with it.They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what is Yuuri going to do with a seven-day husband?





	What Happens in Vegas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whalefairyfandom12](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalefairyfandom12/gifts).



> This was a challenging and fun fic for me to write!
> 
> Thank you to [rayrayswimusic](http://rayrayswimusic.tumblr.com/) for the banner :3

"I look ridiculous," Yuuri said, letting the curtain fall closed again. The crowd was sizeable, like it always was when he headlined, but Yuuri wasn't sure he could do it this time.

"Of course you look ridiculous. This is burlesque, not high fashion." Minako pulled the bottom of his skirt down, tugging the bodice straight over his flat chest. "They're not here to criticize your outfit, they're here to see you get out of it."

"I don't know why I let you talk me into this." 

"Yes you do." Minako straightened the headband perched on his head, fluffing his hair around the cat ears. "As much as you hate to admit it, you enjoy having the excitement in your life."

Yuuri heard a burst of applause from the crowd, and then Phichit exited the stage, waving and blowing kisses. He was wearing considerably less now than he'd gone out to perform in -- the sabai he'd had wrapped around his chest was now trailing behind him, held in one hand. The tiny wrap skirt had been left onstage, to be collected by a stagehand. Now all he wore was an elaborate lacy bustier, covered in sequins, and an improbably small g-string that somehow contained all the important bits. He tried to snuggle up to Yuuri, but Minako stopped him with a poke to the forehead.

"You're sweaty! Go shower before you touch Yuuri, he has to go onstage."

Yuuri graciously accepted a kiss on the cheek in lieu of a hug, because Phichit was affectionate after he performed. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes sparkling, living off the energy of the crowd.

"Better watch out, Yuuri, I'll steal all your regulars. I caught Blackjack Guy staring at me." Phichit's grin was wicked.

"You can have Blackjack Guy," Yuuri said, lying through his teeth. He twitched the curtain aside to look, his heart thumping against his ribs. Sure enough, at a table a couple rows back, Yuuri caught a glimpse of gorgeous, silvery hair.

Yuuri had been dancing at the Flamingo for nearly two years. It hadn't exactly been his first career choice, but after bouncing around major cities for long enough to run out his savings looking for work with a ballet troupe -- and being told every time he was too short to play the principal parts, even though he was a more talented danseur than the current principal -- Yuuri had been a little desperate.

Minako was a family friend; she'd been his first ballet teacher, before she had to close her studio and move to the States for lack of students. After wrestling with himself, Yuuri contacted her for help. He'd spent his last reserves on a bus ticket from San Francisco to Las Vegas, and had found out only after he got here that the "dance business" Minako managed was the burlesque room at the Flamingo casino.

He'd seen Blackjack Guy on his first night. Yuuri wasn't much for gambling, but Phichit, his new coworker (whose fake ID said he was nineteen but privately confided in Yuuri one night that he had yet to turn eighteen), insisted that he couldn't come to Vegas without playing the tables at least once. The dealer at the table where they ended up was the most beautiful human Yuuri had ever seen, with silver hair and eyes bluer than the electric blue cocktail Phichit pushed into his hand. Yuuri had lost every hand, too busy staring into the dealer's eyes.

The fact that Blackjack Guy showed up at his performances was coincidence, Yuuri was sure. He worked for the casino, so sometimes he saw shows on his break, that was all. It wasn't like he was there for Yuuri, no matter what Phichit liked to say.

"Why does he have to be here tonight?" Yuuri murmured, clutching the curtain. "I'm already nervous enough about that ridiculous thing afterward."

"Yuuri," Phichit said, exasperated. "It's not ridiculous. Besides, you agreed!"

"I only agreed because you wouldn't stop whining about how much you didn't want to do it alone, even though it is ridiculous and there's no reason for you to do it in the first place." Yuuri took a long, deep breath, listening to the announcer praise Phichit's performance and prime the crowd for Yuuri. "Go shower and stop bothering me, I'll find you afterward."

Phichit might have said something else, but Yuuri didn't hear him. It always happened right before he went on stage: nerves in the pit of his stomach like a swarm of bees, clammy sweat collecting on the palms of his hands, a faint roaring sound in his ears. Yuuri had never told anyone but Minako, and then only under duress when she wanted to know why he always looked like he was going to faint before he stepped out from the wings. It was embarrassing. Who had ever heard of a performer with stage fright?

"Now for your viewing pleasure," the announcer was saying, a sultry purr through the microphone that always made Yuuri feel even more ridiculous than he felt in the costume. Minako insisted that he brought the house down every time, but Yuuri couldn't see how. He was just average-looking, even with the stage makeup on. Maybe it was the "boy next door" thing.

"All the way from Japan, bringing the Maid Cafe experience straight to you, put your hands together for Eros Katsu-chan!"

Yuuri hated his stage name more than anything else. It was total nonsense, and he'd said as much to Minako, but she just laughed and said they were lucky if Americans could even tell that he and Phichit came from different parts of Asia. She said what mattered was the mental image it evoked. Yuuri wasn't sure whether he was more annoyed with the bastardization of their native tongue or the fact that she was right.

He pasted a smile on his face and left the wings, waving and blowing kisses to the crowd. The outfit was a lot shorter than the skirts at a real maid cafe, the tulle underlayer scratchy against his thighs. The skirt and bodice were separate, so one could be removed without the other. As was his usual signature, Yuuri wore a cat-ear headband on top of his head, carefully arranged so his hair covered the band. The tail was the most uncomfortable part of the getup. Yuuri had stammered and blushed so much at the thought of other more... _internal_ methods of keeping it attached that Minako sighed and stuck it to his skin instead; Yuuri spent more time in makeup than almost anyone else, sitting backward on the chair while someone stuck spirit gum right where his spine dipped into the crack of his ass. It made the tail look natural, but it itched like crazy.

A long time ago, Yuuri had learned how to keep the stage lights in his eyes so he didn't have to look at the audience. He did that now, especially knowing who was out there. It was easier when the music started and he could throw himself into the choreography, slowly swinging his hips so the cat tail swished from side to side. He could tune out the whistling, clapping, and half-joking suggestions from the crowd as long as he focused on the beat.

The first piece of clothing to go was the skirt, undone by the simple pull of a ribbon and left to float down to stage. Yuuri stepped delicately out of it and kicked it aside, his heels clicking on the wood deck. He spun on his toes and extended one leg, slowly bending down, running his hands down the length of his leg, covered in white thigh-high stockings, until he could tap his fingers against the toe of his shoe. The pose put his head below the blinding level of the lights, enough so he could see the crowd.

Enough so that when Blackjack Guy pursed his lips and let out a short, impressed whistle, Yuuri could see that it was from him.

Yuuri had to remember to breathe when he straightened up, trailing his fingertips along the garters holding his stockings up, then dancing them along the edge of the bodice. He raised an eyebrow at the crowd, like he was silently asking whether they wanted to see what he had to offer. The cheers and whistles that followed made him flush; even after all this time to get used to it, people wanting to see him still felt novel.

The rest of his performance went by in a blur. He could never quite get Blackjack Guy's location in the crowd out of his mind. It made him modify his steps, playing to that section of the crowd even though he knew he shouldn't. Burlesque, Minako had told him only a thousand times, was about convincing every audience member with a single look that they were going to be invited home with the dancer. That didn't work if the attention was only focused on one. Yuuri forced himself to open up his steps and play to the other side of the crowd as well.

When he finally took his last bow, waved, and left the stage, his nerves hadn't settled. If anything, they had multiplied, a wave of jittery prickles over his skin as he rinsed sweat and glitter off in the shower. He spent the longest in makeup and the longest in cleanup, too, since he had to work the latex free of his skin with baby oil. The tail and ears went back to props, the costume carefully hung up in the rack. Yuuri ran his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back like he did for stage. He slid his glasses on and frowned at his reflection. He didn't think he looked like anything special.

"Yuuri! Are you ready? The coordinator is here, she was just waiting for you to get done." Phichit was bouncing on the balls of his feet, excitement bleeding out of him in all directions. It just made the fluttering in Yuuri's stomach worse. He bit his tongue to keep from asking Phichit all the nervous questions swimming around inside him. What if whoever they'd selected didn't like him? What if he didn't like them? What if they couldn't even last three days, much less a week?

The woman who was waiting for them outside the stage door had a brilliant smile that shone white against her tan skin. She had long, dark hair, either naturally straight or impeccably straightened. "Good evening! Mr. Chulanont and Mr. Katsuki?"

Even after years in America, that would never cease to sound weird. "Yes, I'm Yuuri Katsuki. This is Phichit."

"Fantastic! I caught the tail end of your performance, by the way. Very sultry." She winked at Yuuri, and Yuuri felt his cheeks heating up again.

"Thank you?" he said, a little faint.

"I'm Sara Crispino -- I'll be your coordinator for the duration of the challenge. My editors are very excited for this article! It's the first time we'll be working with stage performers. I know your schedules are demanding, so why don't we get straight to it?"

"Sounds great to me. Lead the way!" Phichit linked arms with Sara, forward to a fault even with people he didn't know. Yuuri felt a momentary twinge of embarrassment out of long habit, something he'd had to ignore more frequently when Phichit came into his life. "Oh hang on -- Yuuri, come here and take a selfie! It's the beginning of our Buzzfeed adventure!"

Yuuri let himself be dragged into the frame, his glasses knocked askew at Phichit's enthusiasm, and even smiled a little when Phichit snapped the selfie. Sara took it like a good sport before flipping through pages on her clipboard.

"We're glad you've both decided to participate. We did this internally about a year ago, if you remember the article--"

"I do!" Phichit said, and Yuuri wondered if he should have read it. "Are you and your wife still together?"

Sara's dark cheeks turned a little pink. "Our anniversary is next week, actually. We still can't believe we both worked for the company for years and had never met. Isn't it interesting, the people you run into every day and don't even notice?"

She and Phichit chattered as they walked to one of the small lounge areas off the main floor of the Flamingo. There was a small group of people already gathered, and Yuuri's eyes skipped over them, the nervous butterflies multiplying.

"Have a seat here and I'll be back with you when we're ready to introduce you to your assignments," Sara said, settling them both at a table before striding to the front of the group, her heels clicking on the floor.

"Yuuri," Phichit hissed, poking him in the side. Yuuri knocked his hand away.

"Not now," he hissed back.

"Thank you all for joining us! We at Buzzfeed are thrilled to have you all as participants in our Seven Days of Marriage Challenge. I myself participated in last year's challenge, and for those of you who didn't read the article, it was wildly successful for me at least!" Sara smiled brilliantly, holding up her left hand, where her ring glittered in the light. "My wife Mila and I worked together for years, but we'd never met because we were in different departments. We thought that was pretty amazing, so we've tried to replicate that kind of environment for this challenge. Everyone here works for the Flamingo in some capacity, whether it's the performance areas, the casino floor, or behind the scenes. Isn't that exciting?"

Sara's brilliant smile got wider, like she obviously expected them to be as excited about it as she was. She was exactly the kind of person Yuuri would have expected to work for a news organization.

"Yuuri," Phichit whispered again, more insistently this time.

"Not now," Yuuri repeated. "I'm trying to listen."

"Now, just as a refresher to how this works, you and your assigned partner will be married tonight. Since the state of Nevada doesn't have a waiting period, we have a judge on hand with us to make everything legally binding. With your brand new marriage license comes a honeymoon suite, booked for the week and paid for entirely by Buzzfeed. Just try not to order the lobster dinner room service every night, okay?" A few people did laugh at Sara's joke, but Yuuri wasn't one of them. His palms had gotten clammy again. He wiped them on his shirt.

"As the coordinator for the challenge, I'll keep all of the marriage licenses as well as these--" she pulled a thick, stapled packet of papers from her folder "--your legal annulments. You're only required to remain married for the week. If you'd like to go your separate ways once the challenge is over, all you and your partner need do is sign on the line, and it'll be legally dissolved. But of course we're all hoping we've done good work with our matching and you'll choose to stay married!"

Yuuri didn't snort in disbelief, but it was a close thing. He was only here because Phichit had dragged him into it. The likelihood that he would keep this farce going after the end of the week was slim to none.

"You all had different reasons for signing up for this challenge, but most of you said you didn't date because a night schedule on the strip is hard to negotiate with a partner. So here we are, a group of people with compatible schedules!" Sara waved her folder to encompass the group sitting in front of her, and for the first time, Yuuri bothered to actually look them over.

His eyes stopped on a head of silver hair, and he nearly choked on his next breath.

"That's what I was trying to tell you," Phichit said, sounding smug. "Blackjack Guy is here."

"No," Yuuri said flatly, even though the evidence was right there in front of his eyes.

"Maybe he's your partner!"

" _No_ ," Yuuri said again, forcing himself to look away, back to Sara, who started to call out names.

His heartbeat roared in his ears as, two at a time, people he'd seen in passing around the casino were called up to the front. A severe-looking elderly woman turned out to be the judge, and she had a pinched look on her face that told Yuuri she found this whole thing as ridiculous as he did.

"Phichit Chulanont and Seung-gil Lee," Sara called out, and Phichit bounced out of his seat so fast he almost knocked the chair over. His assigned partner, Seung-gil, was expressionless as he got up from a table by himself. Yuuri tried to calm his shaking breaths and pay attention to what Sara was saying to them.

"Seung-gil here is an accountant with the administrative staff of the Flamingo. Phichit is a dancer for the burlesque room. If you both would take your oaths for Judge Baranovskaya, we'll get these papers signed and send you off to your honeymoon suite!"

Phichit flashed Seung-gil a brilliant smile. Seung-gil only looked confused, which Yuuri could relate with at a deep spiritual level right now. He wondered who had dragged Seung-gil into this.

A few more names were called, and then, "Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov."

Yuuri nearly lost his balance standing. He forced himself to walk up to the front, resolutely not staring at Blackjack Guy -- Victor -- who now stood next to him.

"Wow! I got lucky! I didn't even know you were participating, how wild is that?" Victor asked, and Yuuri tried to make something substantial come out of his mouth.

"Um," was all he managed, before Sara handed him a big stack of papers and shooed him over to the judge.

"Raise your right hands," the judge said. She had a note of accent, one that sounded similar to Victor's. "You have both stated that you are not currently married, are not of immediate familial relation, and do knowingly enter into this marriage of your own free will. Do you swear that these statements are true to the best of your knowledge?"

"I do!" Victor said, with a charming little wink at Yuuri.

"I do," Yuuri said, nearly choking on the words in an effort to get them out. This was it, this was real, he was going to be sharing a room with this beautiful stranger for an entire week.

"By the power vested in by by the State of Nevada, I pronounce you married." The way she said it was like something distasteful had touched her tongue. "Sign here, initial here. I advise you not to enter into any mutual financial contracts; I don't want to see either of you in my courtroom trying to settle a divorce."

"No ma'am," Yuuri squeaked, carefully printing his kanji in the signature field. Victor's signature, he saw out of the corner of his eye, was in cyrillic.

"Here's your room key!" Sara said, pressing it into Yuuri's hand. "Have fun getting to know each other!"

Yuuri's fingers closed on the card in a daze. Phichit had already left, presumably gone to his own suite. That left Yuuri face to face with Victor's broad smile all on his own.

"Upstairs?" Yuuri suggested faintly. "I'll have to go to my apartment and get clothes later."

"I need to go get my dog," Victor said. "I wasn't sure if pets were allowed in the guest rooms, but they said it's fine as long as she's housetrained."

"You have a dog?" Yuuri asked, and that was all it took to have Victor launch into an enthusiastic monologue about his poodle, Makkachin, and how wonderful she was. That was a better conversation opener than Yuuri thought it would be. Maybe he could survive the week after all, if Victor was this friendly.

His optimism lasted until they got into the elevator. It was one of the hours between busy and slow, when the strip gained a kind of relative quiesence, though it was never completely quiet. Yuuri had never lived in a place that was awake at all hours; when he'd first come here, he didn't think he could ever get used to it. Now, when the doors slid shut and cut them off from the sounds of the casino and the chattering crowd, Yuuri felt like he was stepping into a different world than the one he came and went from every day. Even his apartment had road noise, but the higher the elevator climbed, the more the ambient sound of the strip faded away.

"So," Victor said, and Yuuri jumped. His voice was closer than Yuuri expected, and he leaned away a little as Victor leaned in. "I'm sure you hear people tell you all the time that you're beautiful when you dance, but I'm excited to get to know you off the stage."

"Really?" Yuuri asked, edging against the wall of the elevator. When would they get to their floor? Why did this hotel have so many stories?

"Oh yes." Victor's accent was thicker when he dropped his voice into that low, sultry register. Yuuri could feel a blush crawling up his face. "I'm sure someone like you doesn't have any problems finding a date. Why the rush into marriage?"

"Well, why did you do it?" Yuuri asked, feeling oddly put on the spot. He didn't know that he wanted to find out how Victor would react if Yuuri told him he'd only done the challenge because Phichit whined at him.

For a moment, it looked like Victor's smile had frozen in place, like his whole expression was held very still to conceal something else behind it. Yuuri was a performer -- he knew how to spot fake people, and Victor hadn't seemed like that kind of person while they talked at the blackjack table that night. This, though. This face was fake.

"Curiosity!" he said lightly, and the elevator dinged. Victor swept out past Yuuri like he hadn't just been looming over Yuuri in the elevator. Yuuri followed him, unsettled by what he'd seen. Maybe Victor was just nervous. Yuuri couldn't really imagine somone like him being nervous, not when he was charming and confident and friendly, everything Yuuri had never been able to pull off. Maybe, on Victor's face, nervous looked like him trying not to show he felt anything at all.

The suite would have been a perfect one-bedroom apartment if the kitchen were a little bigger. It was furnished with one chair, a loveseat, and a king-sized bed. Between the small living area and the bedroom was only an archway, not a proper door. Yuuri scrubbed his palms on his pants.

"Yuuri!" Victor said. It was impossible not to look at him when he chirped Yuuri's name in such a delighted tone of voice, like he would never get tired of saying it. "You must be tired! Come to bed with me!"

Panic hit Yuuri suddenly, like the kick of liquor down his throat. 

"Don't you have to go get your dog?"

"My cousin is watching her for the night!" Victor poked around the suite, flicking the switches on the lamps on and off, opening the cabinets of the kitchenette. 

"I'll sleep on the couch," Yuuri said, walking to the closet so he had something to do. He had to pass by the bed as they went. Buzzfeed had left them pajamas. They were sleek and silky, the cloth hissing through Yuuri's fingers when he picked them up. In the closet, there were two fuzzy bathrobes. Yuuri grabbed one, clutched it and the pajamas to his chest, and dashed into the bathroom.

"Yuuri," Victor whined from the other side of the door. "Just to sleep? We're married!"

"That's alright!" Yuuri said, stepping into the pajamas as quickly as he could. The door was locked, but Yuuri had an irrational thought that the sheer force of Victor's seemingly endless enthusiasm could melt the lock.

"If you say so," Victor said, then heaved a moody sigh. His steps receded from the door. Yuuri pulled on the fuzzy robe, tying the belt snug. The temperature in the hotel room was too cold, and the robe helped. Yuuri was snuggling his face into the collar as he opened the door.

He wasn't ashamed to admit that the first thing he noticed was Victor's bare ass in the full-length mirror behind him. Yuuri had grown up around nakedness, helping his parents take care of the onsen. It had been a fact of life, and he'd seen all kinds of bodies in passing while he went about his chores. Victor was something else entirely; flawless skin, delicious muscle definition, his ass a perfect curve. 

He was also losing his balance as he noticed Yuuri opening the door. He turned it into a somewhat ungraceful flop onto the bed, pulling the pajamas up before Yuuri could catch an eyeful of anything else. When he'd squirmed into the pants, Victor sat back up, hands propped on his knees, smiling up at Yuuri.

Victor was dangerous, Yuuri decided, because he was beautiful, sweet, and a little hapless.

"Are you sure you won't change your mind?" Victor asked. Yuuri didn't know whether to laugh or stare mutely at Victor's forlorn face. He was verging on puppy-dog eyes. Yuuri turned around abruptly, making an escape into the living area.

"It's fine! I'm fine! Goodnight, Victor!" Yuuri curled up on the couch, clutching one of the throw pillows to his chest and laying his head down on the pillow. His heart was racing. Victor probably thought he'd gotten a terrible partner for the challenge. Maybe he would call Sara and want to end the challenge early. Then Yuuri would have escaped the whole ordeal.

Yuuri frowned, staring at the wood grain of the table. He knew it was ridiculous, but he still didn't want to fail. Half of the reason he'd signed up for this was because Phichit bet he couldn't do it. If he didn't at least make an effort, he'd lose. He hated to lose.

"We can do something tomorrow? Like breakfast?" Yuuri suggested into the dark. "I'll go with you to get Makkachin."

"That sounds good," Victor said, and it didn't sound forced. Yuuri heard him roll over, and a few minutes later, his breathing deepened.

Yuuri woke up throughout the night. A couple came up from the casino late, laughing and staggering down the hallway. His toes were cold, and he couldn't get the fuzzy robe to cover his feet. The throw pillow wasn't the right size to sleep on. The loveseat was too short. 

He got up and walked into the bedroom. Victor was there, sprawled on one side of the bed, one hand curled by his head and the other loosely clutching the blankets to his chin. Yuuri watched him breathe for a minute, fighting with himself. Victor definitely wouldn't mind, not after he'd invited Yuuri earlier. Would he expect anything more? That, Yuuri wasn't sure how to handle.

The blankets were heavy; Victor had turned down the plush duvet, apparently too warm underneath it. Yuuri slid in beside him slowly, pulling all the blankets up to his chin and sliding one of the extra-fluffy pillows between them. Victor didn't stir, pale lashes still against his cheeks. Yuuri fell asleep quickly now that he was warm.

Victor's phone went off some hours later. Yuuri opened his eyes to find Victor's hand splayed over his bare stomach, Victor's breath against the back of his neck. The pillow was wedged between their bodies, warm and lumpy against Yuuri's back. Yuuri held still, keeping his eyes closed, as Victor woke up. Yuuri could feel Victor's startled gasp against the nape of his neck and curled his hands tight in the blankets.

A burst of cool air came under the duvet as Victor got out of bed. Yuuri cracked his eyes open and rolled over, watching him sit up. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and Yuuri's eyes traveled up the knobs of his spine as he answered the phone.

"Da, Yura--" Victor jerked the phone away from his ear, a strident yell coming through the speakers. Yuuri couldn't understand what the person on the other end was saying. He realized it was because they were speaking another language when Victor responded in kind, saying something plaintive and a little whiny into the phone. It explained his accent, faint but coloring his words nevertheless.

After a couple minutes of unsuccessfully trying to interrupt the rant from the other line, Victor finally said loudly, "We'll be there to pick her up soon!" and hung up the phone.

"Who was that?" Yuuri asked, groggy. "What time is it?"

"It's about one o'clock in the afternoon, and that was my cousin. I was supposed to come get Makka last night." .

Yuuri groaned discontentedly. "I never get up this early."

Victor turned to look at him, his expression so soft Yuuri thought he could look at it all day. "I didn't expect to wake up next to you."

"Oh, um." Yuuri swung his feet out of bed. "The loveseat is a little small. My feet got cold."

"I liked it," Victor said. "Seeing you, first thing in the morning. It was nice."

Yuuri flushed slowly and stood up. "I'm going to brush my teeth!"

"Do you want to order breakfast?" Victor called after him.

They did order breakfast. Yuuri didn't care for most American breakfast food, but an omelete was tolerable. Victor frowned at the menu for a little while and eventually ordered pancakes, asking for extra jam on the side. He ignored the syrup in favor of slathering butter and jelly on them like Yuuri had seen Americans do with their toast.

"What language was that, on the phone?" Yuuri asked as they ate.

"Russian. I grew up in St. Petersburg before coming to the States." He apparently liked a lot of jelly on his pancakes. He was still painstakingly emptying the little plastic containers of it onto his pancakes when Yuuri was halfway through his omelete. "Where are you from?"

"Japan," Yuuri said. "You won't have heard of Hasetsu. It's on Kyushu -- it's not a small town, but it's not somewhere foreigners have ever heard of either."

They talked as they ate, about how long they had lived in the States, and how hard it was to get used to America, sometimes. Yuuri found it easier to talk to him in the daylight, with a coffee table between them, while Victor's hair still stood up strangely on one side of his head.

Victor had a car, parked in the employee lot. Yuuri didn't drive; he preferred to take a cab to and from his apartment. He didn't regret it, either, after he'd gotten into Victor's broiling hot car and sat in stop-and-go traffic as they left the strip. The cabs waiting outside the Flamingo were already cooled down by the time Yuuri got into them.

The apartment complex where Victor lived wasn't much different than where Yuuri and Phichit shared. Victor's apartment was smaller, since he didn't have a roommate.

He did have a short, loud blonde in his apartment, with an obnoxiously loud voice and vibrant green eyes. Yuuri wondered if it was just a Russian thing, looking so striking.

"What's your name?" the blond demanded, jabbing a finger at Yuuri's chest.

"Oh! Yes, it's kind of funny -- this is my husband, Yuuri!" Victor said, grinning like he was making a huge joke.

"What?!" Green eyes narrowed, and the air between them felt a little colder. "That's my name. You can't marry someone with my name!"

"It's only for the week," Yuuri said, and distracted himself with the dog. "Is this Makkachin?"

Victor beamed as Makkachin leapt all over him, tail wagging fiercely. "Say hi to Yuuri, Makkachin," he cooed. Yuuri scratched behind her ears.

"I'm talking to you!" Yuri shouted, and then switched back to Russian.

It was safer to pet the dog than it was to stand in front of blond Yuri while he was ranting at Victor. His English was a little choppier than Victor's, and his accent thicker. Yuuri didn't know what he was yelling about, but Victor only smiled broadly and laughed while he did it, like Yuri was about as threatening as a kitten puffing up its tail.

It was apparently blond Yuri's last day in Las Vegas, after staying the week with Victor. Yuuri found himself going right back to the strip, where he rarely went if he wasn't working, to take Yuri to the botanical gardens.

"Vegas is boring if you aren't twenty-one," Yuri complained, and didn't seem particularly impressed by the gardens. Victor rolled his eyes and walked them a block up the street to the Mirage, where Yuri's attitude changed quick when he saw the tiger, lion and leopard habitats.

"Do you have a shift tonight?" Victor asked Yuuri. They hung back from the rail, a fond look on Victor's face as Yuri exclaimed over the tigers.

Yuuri shook his head. "I'm dark on Mondays, every other Thursday, and every other Saturday."

"I don't work until tomorrow, either," Victor said. "I'm on Sunday-Tuesday-Wednesday and alternate Fridays."

"That isn't so bad," Yuuri said. "Saturday nights off? Lucky."

"I have better uses for my Saturday nights than working." Victor smiled slowly at him, that same low-lidded, seductive look he'd used in the elevator. "I come to see you, when you're performing."

"You don't," Yuuri laughed. "I mean, I saw you last night, but I figured you must have been there for the Buzzfeed thing."

"I do!" Victor insisted. "Every Saturday you perform. I never get tired of seeing you dance. It's like your body is making the music."

Yuuri knew his face was red. He heard a gagging sound and saw that Yuri had turned his attention away from the tigers to mock them, pulling an exaggerated face.

"I'm hungry," he complained loudly. "Watching you two is going to ruin my appetite."

"How old are you?" Yuuri asked, feeling a small, bemused smile curve his lips. "Surely you've gone through puberty already."

That set Yuri off again, but Yuuri was starting to realize his yelling was all bark and no bite. He looked at Yuuri a little differently after that, like he'd realized Yuuri could give as good as he got and respected him for it.

They returned Yuri to the apartment with a promise to take him to the airport in the morning for his flight back to Russia. Victor disappeared into the bedroom to pack a small suitcase for the week and to gather some of Makkachin's things.

Victor's apartment was a little bare, Yuuri realized as he looked around. He hadn't noticed when they'd only been there for a few minutes, long enough to pick Yuri up for his last minute sightseeing. Yuuri didn't see any pictures of family, or of St. Petersburg, or any other personality on the walls.

"How long have you lived here?" Yuuri asked.

"A few years," Victor called back from the bedroom. "I like the city."

Yuri threw him a look full of meaning from where he was slouched on the couch, pretending to be annoyed at Yuuri's presence.

"What?" Yuuri asked.

"Look," Yuri stretched his feet out and propped them on the coffee table. "I think this Buzzfeed thing is stupid. I thought it was stupid when Victor told me about it. I think he's stupid for doing it, because he's going to get himself hurt. Understand?" Yuri craned his head to check that Victor was still in the bedroom and added, in a lower voice, "He's lonely."

 _He's lonely_. Yuuri rolled the words around in his head as they loaded Makkachin and Victor's things into the car and drove to his own apartment. Phichit wasn't there, but had left Yuuri and enthusiastic note about seeing him again on Sunday, when their "honeymoons" were over. Yuuri read it, smiling.

"Your roommate?" Victor asked. Makkachin was exploring their apartment thoroughly, sticking her nose under the mound of plush throw pillows that obscured their couch. Phichit kept buying them because he said they were fuzzy and comfortable. Yuuri tried to tell him that too many only made the couch hard to sit on, but found himself ignored every time.

"Yeah. Phichit and I have lived together for a couple years. He's a good friend."

"Is he the reason you signed up for this?" Victor asked. Yuuri looked up at him, feeling oddly caught out. He couldn't read the expression on Victor's face.

"He said he didn't want to do it alone." Yuuri wasn't looking at what he was doing anymore, shoving clothes haphazardly into his suitcase. "I didn't expect to get partnered with anyone so--" he shut his mouth quickly, teeth clicking together.

"So...?" Victor prompted, curiosity alive in his eyes. It was better than that utterly blank face he seemed to hide behind when he was uncertain.

"So..." Yuuri gestured at Victor, head to toe. "So _everything_."

Victor laughed, loud and startled. Yuuri's breath came shallow, watching Victor's face. He was so beautiful, like something out of a dream. Yuuri didn't know what the point of this whole thing was supposed to be, but if he got to spend time around this person, he would take it for as long as it lasted.

Makkachin found Phichit's hamsters before they left, and they had to drag her, barking, away from the cage. Victor was laughing too hard to properly scold her, which left Yuuri to shake his finger at her and say "bad dog!" while she laid her head down on her paws and looked at him like he'd wounded her.

They spent the evening watching movies in their hotel room, while Makkachin propped her front feet up on the windowsill and sometimes barked at the lights when they blinked. Yuuri started out on one end of the loveseat, but ended up curled against Victor's side before long. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been touching someone so much. He liked it.

Yuuri's internal clock had him yawning by three in the morning, earlier than he usually turned in. "I was up at one," he said, when Victor poked him awake.

"When do you usually wake up?"

"Four or five," Yuuri said, straightening up and stretching. Makkachin pounced in his lap as soon as he moved.

"Come walk her with me before you go to bed?" Victor asked. His voice was soft and coaxing, like he expected Yuuri to turn him down.

"Let me put my shoes on," Yuuri said.

They walked around behind the Flamingo, away from the main strip where the crowds bustled. Neon turned the dark desert night into a strange, multicolored twilight. Victor's hair caught the color like stained glass. Yuuri watched him talk softly to Makkachin from a couple steps away, feeling like he was in a dream.

He stayed up on the loveseat while Victor went to bed, flipping through channels mindlessly until he heard Victor's breathing even out. Makkachin lifted her head to watch him as he crossed the room, turned the TV off, and slid into bed beside Victor. She whuffed, and Yuuri shushed her, feeling like he was being judged for his cowardice. He just couldn't bring himself to go to bed with Victor while they were both awake, and Victor was looking at him like he was a whole constellation of stars.

Yuuri didn't remember Victor's alarm going off for him to leave and take Yuri to the airport. He woke up at noon to Makkachin bathing his face and whining. Half-asleep, Yuuri pulled on one of Victor's discarded shirts, hooked the leash on her collar, and stumbled downstairs in a bathrobe, boxers, fuzzy slippers, and the shirt. At this hour in Vegas, he was hardly the worst dressed, but as he woke up out of his sleepy stupor, Yuuri blushed at himself. It had always been easy for him to go with the flow and get swept up in a routine, but this was a little ridiculous. He tried to dodge the half-curious, half-knowing glances as he took Makkachin back up to their room.

Victor was there when he got back, looking barely more awake than Yuuri, in the middle of tugging off his socks and shoes.

"Oh good," he said. "I figured you had taken her, when you weren't here." Then, Victor noticed what Yuuri was wearing, his eyes tracking over Yuuri from head to toe. "Going back to bed?"

Yuuri grunted an affirmative, stepping out of the slippers and shedding the bathrobe on the floor. He made a detour to close the blackout curtains, plunging the room into darkness before he crawled back into bed. He was asleep as his head hit the pillow, all embarrassment forgotten.

Later that night, Victor watched him get ready for work, seated on the rim of the bathtub. Yuuri waited until he was backstage to do most of his makeup, but he always did his face scrub, moisturizer, and foudation before he got in.

"The dressing mirrors are a disaster," he said absently, scrubbing his cheeks with an exfoliating pad. "It's bad enough with the girls, but at least most of them put things away in a case. The guys just leave everything all over the counter. So for everything I can do myself, I do it at home. Plus, the makeup artists never remember to keep anything in my skintone. Phichit has the same problem, only worse. I end up with peach undertones and look jaundiced, Phichit gets foundation line if he isn't careful about the shade."

"How long have you been dancing?" Victor asked.

"Since I could walk, almost," Yuuri said. "I started with ballet. I still do -- tomorrow I'll be in the studio before I go to work."

"Can I come watch?" Victor asked, excitement making him bounce where he was seated.

"I don't think it'll be very interesting." Yuuri splashed water on his face to scrub the soap off and groped blindly for a towel. Victor pressed one into his hand. Their fingers brushed.

"I'm interested in everything you do," Victor said. Yuuri was starting to think he really meant it. "Can I come backstage with you for your show?"

"Don't you have to work?" Yuuri laughed, hanging the towel back up and uncapping the highlighter.

"Your early show is before my shift starts. I can give you a kiss for good luck!"

Yuuri blushed a hot, fierce red. "Stop that, you're making it hard to see where my highlights need to go."

"I love your blush," Victor said, smiling at him in the mirror. His eyes were sparkling as Yuuri blushed harder.

In the end, Yuuri did let him come backstage, and while he dodged the kiss for luck, the ghost of Victor's lips warm on his cheek gave his hips a little extra shimmy that night, knowing Victor was in the audience. He came backstage again between shows, throwing his arms around Yuuri in an enthusiastic hug.

"This must be the Blackjack Boy," Minako said, with a wide, evil smile. "The one you're married to, now?"

"Phichit told you," Yuuri said, resigned. "Victor, this is Minako. You asked me how long I've been dancing? She was my first teacher."

"Pleasure to meet you," Victor said, turning his brilliant smile on Minako as he offered his hand.

"Hm," Minako said, shaking his hand firmly -- more firmly than Victor expected, from the way he winced. "You know, back when I was younger, we didn't need the excuse of a news article to run off and have a Las Vegas Wedding."

"Minako," Yuuri groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"Don't do that, you'll smudge your makeup, and you still have the late night show."

"I've been taking good care of Yuuri," Victor said, and Yuuri laughed.

"I had to remind you twice to call the laundry service for your work shirts."

"You almost fell asleep without remembering to eat dinner!"

"Well," Minako said. "You definitely argue like you're married. You could have done worse."

She went to fuss with Phichit's costume, leaving Yuuri to stammer in her wake. Victor gave him one last hug and snuck another kiss to his cheek before he left to get ready for his shift. Yuuri realized, as he got his makeup touched up for the later show, that he missed Victor's enthusiasm.

Yuuri was so tired as he came off shift that all he could do was shower and stagger upstairs. Makkachin jumped on him, wagging her tail and barking, and Yuuri stared blankly at her for a moment before he sighed, put his shoes back on, and took her outside. Victor wasn't back until well after Yuuri had crawled into bed. Yuuri woke to hear him cursing in the dark as he ran into the nightstand and fumbled for the light.

"You don't have to--"

Yuuri groaned when the light clicked on and hid his face under the pillow. "Hurry," he whined.

Victor slid under the covers and leaned over Yuuri to switch the light off again. "Did you have a good night at work?"

"Mmhmm," Yuuri murmured. "You?"

"My feet hurt. Can I still come to your studio tomorrow?"

"Mmhmm." Yuuri didn't see any reason why not. He was getting used to Victor's presence, warm from the heat of his body next to Yuuri's in the bed to the light of his smile. A small whispering voice in the back of his mind reminded him the week was halfway over. He shoved it aside.

Wednesday afternoon saw Yuuri at the barre, ignoring how Victor's eyes lingered on his thighs and butt as he went through his exercises. Victor was being very good, sitting still in a chair in the corner of the room, sleepily clutching a coffee even though it was four in the afternoon. 

Las Vegas ran on a twenty-four hour clock, and both the people who worked the strip and the tourists ended up nocturnal. Yuuri was normally awake from three in the afternoon to seven or eight in the morning, which allowed for two shows per night, a six o'clock dinner show and a nine o'clock late show. Victor's eight-hour shift on the casino floor started at ten o'clock at night and took him to six am, the graveyard and the early morning in one. 

Yuuri finally felt limber enough to move out to the floor under Minako's watchful eye. He could feel Victor's gaze on him as he practiced leaps and turns, his body moving precisely as he directed. The burn of exercising muscles settled under his skin, a satisfying feeling that left him full of energy when he finally wound down into stretching after the lesson.

"Yuuri! That was amazing!" Victor exclaimed, springing up from his chair. "You do that every week? Wow!"

Yuuri laughed a little, toweling the sweat out of his hair. "Twice a week, usually. Wednesday and Sunday. And of course, even though it's not ballet, dancing in the burlesque room is a workout."

"Will you have lunch with me before your shift?" Victor asked. "We should walk Makkachin, too."

Minako had conceded to allow the dog in her studio, provided that Victor promised she would stay quiet in the corner. She had caught some of her owner's excitement and started running across the floor, prompting Minako to yell about claws on the sprung boards and shoo them all out. He and Victor walked to a cafe nearby, Victor peppering him with questions about dance.

"Did you know you wanted to deal at the casino when you came to Las Vegas?" Yuuri asked, trying to turn the subject away from himself. Victor was so enthusiastic to learn about Yuuri, that Yuuri could barely get a word in edgewise about Victor.

Victor laughed a little. His face went from lively and interested to almost too happy, a rigid smile across his face. "I wanted to do magic! I learned all kinds of card tricks before I came to America. Turns out magic is out of style, and everywhere that does magic shows is booked solid. Sometimes I do card tricks in between hands; it helps pull people to the table."

"They're not put off by the idea of a dealer who's good at sleight of hand?" Yuuri laughed. "I know the house always wins, but that's a little excessive."

"I don't cheat at the tables," Victor said, suddenly serious. "It may not be what I wanted to do, but I enjoy doing it."

"I was joking," Yuuri said, uncertain. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound frivolous."

"It's fine!" Victor said, turning his megawatt smile on again. Yuuri, once more, was a bit disconcerted by how easily Victor hid what he was feeling.

They went back to the room. Yuuri showered and did his makeup routine. Victor laid out his work clothes and came down with Yuuri when he went to the burlesque room. Tonight, Yuuri could tell even before he walked to the dressing rooms that it would be a bad night, one of those times where it felt like he would crawl out of his own skin. He kept flinching at the makeup artist with the eye pencil. The cacophony of sound in the dressing room made it worse, not better, and Yuuri finally put in a pair of headphones and went to stretch away from the mirrors, making sure his muscles, fatigued from practice, wouldn't seize up on stage.

After a couple rounds of pacing the room, Yuuri spotted Victor near Phichit at the dressing room mirrors. He turned down the volume on his phone, curious.

"--like that. He's really self-contained. I've never seen him reach out to anyone else for anything. If he's even letting you be here backstage, that's a step." Phichit was carefully applying his eyeliner as he spoke. Yuuri had always admired how he could keep his mouth running while he painted perfect black wings in the corners of his eyes.

"I try to get close to him, and it seems like he'd rather run away," Victor said, frustration in his voice. Yuuri's stomach sank. Victor did think he was a bad challenge partner.

"At least you didn't get my husband," Phichit said, a little sour. "I can't get him to smile. I can't get him to come backstage with me. I can't get him to show any kind of emotion about anything."

"I'm sorry," Victor said, sounding sincerely sorry. Yuuri had always had trouble knowing what to say when people were upset. He wondered what it would be like to be able to do that -- find the right words so easily.

"It's fine, I'm not sure what I was expecting. I just wanted to make my parents stop calling me about coming back to Thailand and finding a nice Thai person to marry." Phichit pouted at the mirror. "I like living in America. I have way more fun here."

Yuuri turned the volume back up on his phone and went back to stretching. He'd heard Phichit complain about his parents too many times to listen to it again. Yuuri still hadn't called his parents about the marriage. He figured it was too soon to make any kind of call. That only reminded him that in three days, Yuuri needed to make a decision about whether or not to stay married to Victor Nikiforov. The part that scared him was that he couldn't come up with any convincing arguments why he shouldn't.

By the time it was his turn to go out onstage, Yuuri was a mess. The nervousness that had plagued him backstage had only multiplied, until he paced upstage of the closed curtain, listening to the tinny echoes of Phichit's music, his stupid tail swishing behind him.

"I don't know if I can," he said, looking down at his hands, encased in lacy white gloves. "It's ridiculous. You don't think it's ridiculous?"

"I think you're beautiful," Victor said.

Yuuri felt his throat closing in frustration and tipped his head back, blinking to keep from tearing up. He couldn't mess up his makeup right before his cue. "That's not what I mean."

"Ah, I never know what to say in these situations!" Victor, for once, sounded actually frustrated, not like he was pasting a smile on his face to cover it. Yuuri dabbed at his eyes with the bottom of his skirt, trying to take deep breaths. "I don't know, should I just kiss you or something?"

Yuuri felt his temper flare. "Stop doing what you think you should do and just do what you feel! I don't need you to be perfect, I just need you to tell me it'll be okay! Tell me I'll be fine! Believe in me!"

Victor's lips were parted in surprise, his eyes wide in shock. It was the most genuine expression Yuuri had seen on his face, and it made his chest squeeze tight. Victor reached out and grabbed both of his hands, squeezing, and pulled Yuuri close until their foreheads rested together.

"I don't know why you feel like this," he said, "but you're going to be amazing. You're always amazing. I come see you because you're amazing when you dance. I've seen you perform so many times, Yuuri, and I always hoped one day you'd come see me at my table again, that you'd smile just for me the way you did when you were losing every round and didn't even care."

Yuuri felt like a balloon expanded in his chest, light and airy. He gave Victor a watery smile and sniffled.

"Okay?" Victor asked, his eyebrows knitted together anxiously.

"Okay," Yuuri said, taking a long, deep breath. "You'll be watching?"

"I couldn't look away," Victor said firmly, and Yuuri heard them calling his stage name.

He danced for Victor that night, playing to him in the crowd. The burlesque room seemed to notice that Yuuri was giving his attention to one particular section; he saw curious heads turning to see who the lucky object of his affection was. At the end of his number, standing onstage in only a g-string, heels, the lacy gloves, stockings, and garter belt, Yuuri saw Victor get up from his table and dash to the stage door.

Yuuri was still waving, not quite off the stage, when he found himself with an armful of Victor. He staggered, his arms going around Victor's waist, and squeaked against Victor's lips as he was kissed. A couple of whistles came from the house-right section, the only tables who could see him from where he was in the wings. Yuuri was bright red when Victor let him go, beaming.

"Amazing," he breathed. "You're amazing."

"I can't believe you just did that," Yuuri said, pressing his hands against his cheeks.

"I couldn't resist!"

After his second show, Yuuri went to go find Victor on the casino floor, remembering what Victor had said about wanting him to come by the table. He hadn't washed his makeup off this time, and he borrowed his work shoes even after Minako gave him a stern look for doing it. Phichit, apparently encouraged by the fact that Seung-gil was responding to his texts with cute emojis, loudly wished him luck seducing his husband.

It took Yuuri only a few seconds of wandering before he spotted Victor's table; his silver hair stood out. As Yuuri watched him work, deft hands moving the cards like they were magnetized to his palms, he saw Victor smile and wink at one of the casino guests. It was the same brilliant, fake smile Yuuri had seen a thousand times when Victor was hiding his real self, and all at once, a powerful jealousy gripped him like a fist around his throat.

When he saw Yuuri approaching, Victor's whole face lit up. His smile melted from the frozen thing Yuuri had come to despise into something warm and soft. A thought rolled through his mind like a revelation. _They shouldn't get to see that smile._

Victor's face went from anticipatory to surprised as Yuuri came closer. He imagined what Victor might see in his face, that his eyes went wide and his lips parted again, the same way they had backstage. Yuuri didn't pause to find out -- he swooped in, plucked at the front of Victor's shirt to pull him close, and kissed him right there at the table.

"I'm done for the night," he said as he pulled back. "See you upstairs?"

"Uh-huh," Victor said faintly, staring at Yuuri like he was awestruck.

Yuuri spent the elevator ride upstairs with his hands pressed over his face, reliving the moment over and over and wishing the floor would open up and swallow him. It had been so foward! He wasn't usually that bold. Maybe it was both of their names on a little piece of paper that said married that made Yuuri so possessive. Maybe it was because he only had three days left of keeping Victor to himself.

Yuuri always had hated to lose.

Still, he curled up under the blankets and pretended very hard to already be asleep when Victor came upstairs.

Neither of them had a shift on Thursday. They slept in later than they usually did, waking around dinnertime and ordering room service. Victor whined at Yuuri until Yuuri let himself be coaxed into accepting a footrub. He groaned aloud, melting into the arm of the couch.

"You're so good with your hands," he sighed, blushing when he realized how it sounded.

Victor chuckled softly, digging his thumbs into Yuuri's arches.

As the night wore on, Victor seemed even more fidgety than usual. He got up from the couch frequently as they watched the pay-per-view channels, happy to charge the latest movie releases to Buzzfeed's dime. Yuuri caught his restlessness, unable to sit in one position on the couch. Makkachin seemed to sense it too; she kept shaking her toys like she was trying to rip them apart, then staring expectantly at the two of them.

"Yuuri," Victor finally said, as it approached dawn. "Will you come out somewhere with me?"

"Makka too?" Yuuri asked, stretching from his seat on the couch. It would do him good to leave the hotel room on his day off, instead of staying inside the whole time.

"Yeah. We'll take the car."

Yuuri wasn't sure what to expect as they started to drive away from the strip. Victor got on the highway, leaving the ever-present neon of Las Vegas in their rearview. It was late, by Yuuri's internal clock. He started to doze off as they drove, soft classical playing on the radio. The sky was starting to get lighter in the east, out the driver's side window. Yuuri yawned and let his eyes fall closed.

"We're here," Victor said softly, waking him from his shallow sleep some time later. Yuuri yawned, stretching, popping his elbows and his spine. He opened the car door and got out.

They were parked on the side of a two-lane state highway, nothing but desert stretching out in front of them. The sun still hadn't quite broken the horizon, but the sky was bright with dawn, in a way Yuuri hardly ever saw it. He was usually in bed by this hour, ready to sleep half the day away.

"Sit with me," Victor said, patting the dirt beside him. Yuuri folded himself down, brushing the rocks out from underneath him. Makkachin strayed to the end of her leash, pulled back by Victor's gentle tug. They faced the eastern horizon, breathing in the still-cool morning air. It would be sweltering soon, but for now it was tolerable.

"I've never really gone out into the desert," Yuuri said. "Where are we?"

"We're about half an hour outside the suburbs. I used to come out here a lot, when I first moved here. I've lived in cities my whole life. I was in reach of wilderness like this, in Russia, but I never went to see." Victor swept his arm out, his hand passing over the line of the horizon. "St. Petersburg is on the ocean. I never thought I could get used to a place with no water."

"Hasetsu is on the ocean, too. I used to go running by the water in the mornings as the sun rose." Yuuri drew his knees up to his chest, propping his chin on them. "I didn't like it here, when I first came. I was living in San Francisco, before. That's on the ocean. Do you miss the sound? The seagulls?"

"I miss a lot of things." Victor stretched his legs out in front of him. "I never felt at home here. I was alone, aside from Makkachin. She's wonderful, but she's not much of a conversationalist."

Yuuri remembered what Victor's cousin had said. _He's lonely._

"Why did you sign up for this?" Yuuri asked. "To get married to a stranger? Seems risky."

"You did it, too."

"I asked first," Yuuri insisted, turning to face Victor. They were so close. Dawn made the sky and the sand both blush pink. Victor's face was pink, too, but Yuuri didn't think it was the dawn.

"I'm tired of being alone," Victor said. It was sighed out of him, like he'd been holding it in for a long time. "These past days, waking up with you before work and coming back to you when I'm tired and my feed hurt, have made me feel like I could be at home here."

Yuuri couldn't breathe. Victor had stolen the air out of his lungs. How could he just come out and say things like that? Yuuri had spent the night before curled up in a ball under the blankets, agonizing over the kiss he'd stolen on the casino floor. Now Victor said Yuuri made him feel at home, and Yuuri didn't know what to do with that.

"I wanted to know what it was like," he said finally. He owed Victor an answer, after something like that. "I'm pretty ordinary. There's not much about me that's special, or unusual. I get nervous over things I shouldn't. I've never had a lover. Not a real one, not something beyond a school-age crush. I guess I just wanted to know."

"Yuuri," Victor said, and Yuuri had to pull his eyes up from his own hands to Victor's face. Victor reached out for his hand, lacing their fingers together. Yuuri's heart beat hard against his ribs. "Yuuri, I think you're the most wonderful person I've ever known. You're not ordinary. You're headlining at the burlesque room at the Flamingo."

"It's just because Minako--"

"Even if your teacher does run it, she wouldn't be able to put your face on posters if you didn't fill the room," Victor insisted. "I wish you could understand how lucky I feel that I met you. How lucky I am that I got to marry you."

Yuuri had to make Victor stop talking before he said something he regretted. He caught Victor's face in his hands and kissed him, slow, tentative at first but gaining confidence when Victor seemed to tremble under his hands.

Light filtered through his closed eyelids. Yuuri cracked his eyes open and turned his face, breaking the kiss, breathing in Victor's little gasp of disappointment. He had to let go of Victor's face and shade his eyes from the rising sun, cutting hard shadows across the desert sand from every rock and scrubby bush. Where those dark smudges didn't fall, the sand was bathed a shimmering gold.

"Wow," Yuuri said, his eyes watering in the light. "It's beautiful."

"Yes," Victor agreed. He didn't look like he'd turned his head to look at the sunrise at all, and Yuuri hoped the brilliance of the light would hide the blush in his cheeks.

Yuuri was slow at his shift the next day, worn out from staying up too late and getting too little sleep. Something had settled between him and Victor, after their mutual confessions in the desert. Yuuri went straight from work to the hotel room, walked Makkachin, and came to find Victor on the casino floor with his face washed of makeup, dressed casually. Victor slung an arm around his waist without missing a beat, planting a firm kiss on his cheek. Yuuri returned it, blushing deep red, listening to the tipsy casino patrons make adoring noises at how cute they were.

"Just married," Victor said, giving the table a wink when Yuuri pulled away.

"So there is such a thing as romance in Vegas," one of the women laughed, and the table seemed to forget Yuuri existed. All but Victor, who didn't break eye contact until Yuuri blew him a kiss and went to the elevators.

Nothing happened between them at nights, aside from drifting into each other's gravity toward the center of the bed. Yuuri woke up in the afternoons to find that Victor had kicked all his blankets off.

He had Saturday off, so he slept much later than usual. Yuuri was up before him, getting ready for work quietly. Every now and then he would drift to the bathroom doorway, watching Victor sleep, his silver hair touseled across the pillow. This was the last day. Tomorrow they would go their separate ways, and Yuuri would have to walk the casino floor into the Flamingo every night knowing that Victor was there.

Yuuri tried to think of what it would be like not to sign the papers. To let this thing continue between them, unfolding with the hard part already done. People had married each other like this for centuries, Yuuri tried to tell himself. Surely it must have worked out for some of them.

He couldn't stop hearing his sister's voice in his head, all the way from Japan, telling him he was being an idiot. _Who marries a stranger, Yuuri?_

Phichit's complete turnaround on Seung-gil, oddly enough, was no help.

"He's just reserved," Phichit said as he applied his contour. "His mom is really controlling. She keeps trying to get him to date, so he did this instead. He's sweet, once you get to know him. My mom cried when I told her I finally got married. He's still trying to figure out how to tell his. He thinks we might need to go to Korea, so he's been teaching me some."

"Have you been teaching him Thai?"

"He's terrible," Phichit said, fighting back a fond smile. "He gets this cute little wrinkle right between his eyebrows when he knows he's messed something up. I can't believe this worked out, Yuuri. I was expecting it to be really weird, but I like him."

Yuuri made eye contact with him in the mirror. He always sent Victor out of the room for this part, where the makeup artists had to pull his pants halfway down his butt to get the tail on.

"Do you think you're going to sign the annulment?" Yuuri asked, even though he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

"No," Phichit said, sure and immediate. "I think it's kind of romantic, getting to know him when we're already married. My mom was so upset that we didn't do it right, and I think she's planning on flying half the family here somehow, so she can make us do the ceremony and everything. Seung-gil said he doesn't mind having a Thai wedding."

"You're already planning everything," Yuuri said, with a little nervous laugh.

"Well, yeah." Phichit tilted his face this way and that, checking that his makeup was even. "If you find someone you like, you should hold onto them, shouldn't you? Otherwise, you're holding back for no reason."

Yuuri didn't know what his performances were like that night. Victor watched both of them, and came backstage to hug Yuuri afterward. He seemed like he always wanted to be touching Yuuri, grabbing his hand or sneaking an arm around his waist or even just pressing his knee against Yuuri's thigh. Yuuri realized how much he'd grown used to those little touches after just six days.

They ate something light before bed, because Yuuri's stomach was acting up. He brushed his teeth quickly and went to sit on the bed, hands clenched on his knees while Victor showered. He didn't look as Victor came out of the bathroom, gaze fixed on his hands. Should he tell Victor now? It would be cruel to do it tomorrow, in front of everyone.

"Victor," he said, and listened to Victor's footsteps pause. "Let's sign the annulment papers tomorrow."

Silence rang in the hotel room. Makkachin was asleep in the other room, and Victor didn't move after Yuuri spoke. For a long moment it seemed like he didn't even breathe. Then, Yuuri heard a soft gasp, raspy and choked, and he looked up from his lap.

Victor's blue eyes were full of tears, rolling down his cheeks and falling onto the fluffy bathrobe. Yuuri rose to his feet like he was compelled, reaching foward to brush Victor's hair out of his face, only to have his hand knocked aside.

"You're cruel, Yuuri Katsuki," Victor said. "To do this to me the night before, when I'd finally started to believe in hoping."

"I'm sorry," Yuuri said. He felt strangely detached from himself, stunned by the breadth of emotion on Victor's face. It was the most he'd ever seen. Victor's mouth was pinched and turned down, his eyebrows pulled tight, his eyes bloodshot. "I should have said sooner, that I never intended--"

"Of course you didn't! I didn't either!" Victor's voice rose. Yuuri wondered what his own face must look like. "I thought this week might have changed your mind."

"We still hardly know each other," Yuuri said. "We're strangers."

He knew it was the wrong thing to say when Victor's face smoothed over into that perfect, fixed mask, a frozen smile on his face.

"Well, Mr. Katsuki, would you mind if I still slept in the bed?" he asked, and Yuuri could see now how that mask hid all kinds of things.

He was awake long after Victor's ragged, choked breathing subsided, sitting up against the headboard. He felt like a coward. He felt cruel, like Victor had said. He remembered Phichit in the dressing room. _If you find someone you like, you should hold onto them, shouldn't you?_

It couldn't be that simple.

Victor didn't talk to him as they walked down to the lounge where they'd met Sara, one week ago. They sat next to each other, Victor's body language closed off from him, one elbow propped on the table so his back was to Yuuri.

"Welcome back!" Sara chirped from the front of the room. Beside her, Judge Baranovskaya glowered. "I hope you all go the most out of your week of marriage, courtesy of Buzzfeed and your employers at the Flamingo Las Vegas. For the purposes of the article, we'll be having a reporter follow up with each of you, both separate and together with your assigned partner, within the next couple days. I know you're all very busy people and some of you have shifts today, so let's go ahead and get started!"

Sara called out the first couple's names. They came to the front and signed the papers in silence, then shook hands and went their separate ways. It should have made Yuuri feel better to see an amicable separation, but instead it made his guts feel like they were tying themselves in knots. He didn't want Victor to walk away and never speak to him again, he realized, and felt horribly selfish. After what he'd said last night, he didn't have the right to ask for anything from Victor.

"Phichit Chulanont and Seung-gil Lee," Sara called out.

"Actually," Phichit said, standing up from his seat. Yuuri, sitting behind them, could see him holding Seung-gil's hand under the table. "We've decided not to sign the annulment. We're going to stay married."

"Congratulations!" Sara clapped a little, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "We were hoping for at least one! We hope you enjoyed your honeymoon, and wish you a wonderful life together."

There was a polite round of applause from the gathered people. Yuuri clapped mechanically, giving Phichit a weak smile when he beamed and waved around the room. When he sat back down, he grabbed his phone and immediately started taking selfies with Seung-gil, who didn't look like he smiled in any of them.

Victor was looking at him. Yuuri could feel his gaze. He kept his eyes fixed on Sara, his mouth dry.

"Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov."

Yuuri felt shaky when he stood up. He and Victor went to the front with a foot of space between them, Victor refusing to look at him. Yuuri felt like he deserved this, for not taking it seriously and for going through with it anyway. He should have known he would break someone's heart.

"Sign here," Judge Baranovskaya said. "Do you both swear that you have not acquired community property, such that would require an arbitration in a court of law?"

"I do," Victor said, flat and emotionless.

"I do," Yuuri said quietly.

"Your marriage is annuled. Go."

Victor turned and walked away from the table, leaving Yuuri standing there with a breath in his lungs and no words to say.

Yuuri would miss how warm the bed was with Victor in it. He would miss Makkachin, standing on her hind legs to beg for walks. He would miss having someone shout _Amazing!_ when he left the stage.

He already missed the way Victor said his name softly in his ear as he crawled in bed to sleep.

"Victor!"

Yuuri had been louder than he meant to. He didn't care. Victor didn't turn around at his shout, and Yuuri ran after him. Victor seemed like he was quickening his pace, heading straight for the elevators back to their room. He had to get Makkachin, Yuuri remembered. She wasn't allowed on the casino floor.

"Victor, wait!"

Victor punched the button for the elevator, his head tipped down, hair falling in his face. Yuuri reached out and caught him by the shoulder, panting for breath.

"Yuuri," Victor said, like he was surprised to find Yuuri there. He smiled, empty and heartbreaking. "It was fun, wasn't it?"

Yuuri couldn't stand to see that smile on his face anymore.

"Will you go out on a date with me?" he panted, hand clutching Victor's shoulder tight.

Victor's fake smile melted into shock, the way he'd looked on the casino floor when Yuuri pulled him in for a kiss. "What?"

"Please." Yuuri took a deep breath. He didn't want to hold himself back anymore. "I can't be married to you yet, but I want to get back there again someday. Can we?"

"Yuuri!" Victor threw his arms around Yuuri, beaming, a genuine smile as bright as the sun rising over the desert. "Let's go on a date every day until you agree to marry me again!"

"Every day?" Yuuri laughed. The elevator dinged, and they stumbled into it, wrapped up in each other's arms. 

Then again, Yuuri didn't think he would mind every day, if every day was going to be like this.


End file.
